nDreams Monthly Newsletter - June 2012 : Xi Special!

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The Making of Xi - Special​

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“Xi” finished three years ago this month. So we’ve decided to make this newsletter a celebration of Xi and to take a look behind the scenes at how it was made. ​

[HR][/HR]Building Xi

Xi was a huge project. We started work in December 2007, learning about Home and launched Xi in March 2009, some 15 months later. We were inexperienced, we had a crazily ambitious design and we were determined to deliver it regardless of the technical complexities.
We were very lucky – we came up with an original idea that Sony liked, and they gave us the freedom to play around with Home and figure out what it was capable of. Our producer at Sony, Ali Bergstrom-Allen, was incredibly supportive and we repaid that trust by working very hard on what would become the world’s first console-based Alternate Reality Game (ARG) and end up with over half a million players.

Things changed a lot as well – did you know that the AlphaAFK were originally called the ‘Beta’? That Stapler was originally called TD32 and then Orson before we settled on Stapler? Or that Jess was originally known as Jade?


The two emotions that I remember most from the three months that Xi ran were excitement and fear (in equal measures). Home wasn’t nearly as robust back then as it is now, and each week we were doing things for the first time. Testing games in 64-person spaces when we only had 4 development kits was tough, and there were several occasions where things went wrong, a game didn’t work quite as expected or someone managed to hack the relatively insecure file system that we used back then. But there were plenty of great moments; seeing Xi’s popularity grow, the huge effect it had on Home usage, and the reaction to the games/puzzles was fantastic. I’ll never forget moments like the billboard puzzle, and the excitement of the players on the forums, egging on a few individuals across Europe as they dashed to many billboard sites, took photos, and shared them with the rest of the community to solve the puzzle.

I think it’s fair to say that despite working on many big ‘triple-A’ games including big franchises like Tomb Raider, Xi remains the proudest game of my career so far. And with the games I see in development at nDreams currently, I’d like to emphasise the words ‘so far’

Patrick O’Luanaigh, Director of Xi

Images: Day one on the AlphaAFK website (top). An early prototype of the ‘Maximum Tilt’ game space (middle). Filming in Patrick’s house (below).
[HR][/HR]The Art of Xi


When it came to planning the environments for Xi, we worked very closely with the Sony core team to develop something that would help to serve our crazy ideas for puzzles and events and at the same time complement the beautiful world that Sony had created.

I think we surprised a lot of people with just how different the Xi Hub looked to anything else at the time, and we really pushed things with the cavernous ghost mazes of Alpha Zone 3. I remember the first lighting pass we did for AZ3, the roof was so far up that the floor was left in total darkness!

But I think you very much ‘felt’ like you were still in Home while playing Xi and that really helped with the immersive experience essential to ARGs. Home was still very young while we were developing Xi and the experimental nature of learning how a game engine behaves can lead to some pretty funny and sometimes cool results.

If you remember the graffiti puzzle from the Summer House apartment, that was actually a result of us trying to lay oil stains over the floor of the Maintenance area! It turned out that making something both semi-transparent and glowing from certain angles actually made it completely disappear unless you looked at it head on which was perfect for a treasure hunt game... not so much for making a grubby mess in a perfectly good maintenance hall. Luckily for us, the Sony tech team didn’t remove the ‘feature’ while we ran with Xi.

Xi feels like an age away now, and with the Home engine constantly improving to be so much more than it was back then we’re seeing lots of great stuff coming through all the time. When you consider how far out there we managed push the boat with Aurora, I sometimes wonder what Xi would be like with the functionality of today’s Home... and then I remember that I quite like my bed and don’t miss sleepless nights at the office

Martin Field, Artist on Xi

Images: The original concept art for our ‘UFO’ AlphaZone 1 game (top). A “grey-box” version of the AlphaZone 1 space (middle). AlphaZone1 in its final glory (below).
[HR][/HR]Writing Xi

Games in virtual worlds have one distinct advantage over traditional console games. The players aren't running around as other characters, they are themselves. They might be dressed as ninjas (and who wouldn't in real life if they could get away with it?) but their avatar is a representation of them. This to me is so important. One of the holy grails for gaming - how dowe engage emotions more? Answer: set it in a virtual world.

Since the players were real, Xi needed to be too. We set it in Home, the internet and in the real world. If you closed your eyes enough Xi was real and the players really responded to that. Sometimes too much.

There was a particular quiet Saturday night, I was a couple of glasses of wine to the good and went onto the forums to see the latest Xi chit chat (oh yes, we were keeping a beady eye on you...) only to find players had broken into the game code and accessed the following weeks Xi updates. There was already YouTube footage of players running around a space that wasn't due to open until the following week. This sobered me up. A swift call to Patrick and he headed off to the office while I re-wrote some lines that included the break-in into the narrative. The players loved that. It was like a living game- if you poked it, it reacted back.

To do this we had to be vigilant, oh yes. Lurking on the forums and actual participation in events. I must admit as a writer (we don't get out much) I had an absolute gas running around Home as Ignatius, joining in parties and mildly insulting people. I met some fine people (you), had some very late nights and am convinced I am in some way responsible for the bizarre return to fashion of the body warmer.

We always said if we did another one all the elements would adhere more closely to a coherent narrative. There was a narrative to Xi, though it was a little odd if you remember. Jess had disappeared and you were helping her clan- the AlphaAFK- find her. After that anything went. We had mutant fish, a schmaltzy pop song, text adventures. What? It was mildly bonkers. Buton reflection, that was a huge part of its charm. You literally never knew what was around the next corner. "A machinima message from Jachal?", "Naa, Jess is chasing aliens around Paris."

Console games rock but Xi, Xi was punk.

Christian Wheeler, Writer on Xi

Images: One of several billboards in the real world for one of Xi’s puzzles (top). The original teleport ‘graffiti’ from Home Square/Central Plaza (middle). Not many people earned all of these! (below).
[HR][/HR]Xi legacy
So here we are, 3 years since Xi finished. If you didn’t experience Xi, make sure you check out the Xi Museum, which is live in Home at the moment. It has many of the games from Xi in there, all fully playable for free, some Xi merchandise and a great video and slideshow showing you what Xi was all about.

And if you did experience Xi, you’re probably asking “Why haven’t you made another one?”
Well, it can be tough getting stuff organised behind-the-scenes. But Jessica is definitely still out there. She’s just waiting for the right moment to get back in touch…

By the way, if you remember our Paul Ballard track with fondness, you can experience the magic of Home “machinima pop” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwISFJxxgTY&list=UUemHPODXjklV80H_G2GDW1g&index=1&feature=plcp


Images: Jessica in the Whiteroom at the end of Xi (top). Many of Xi’s games can still be played in the Xi Museum (below).
[HR][/HR]There is no competition this month, but Stapler insisted on editing this newsletter before it went out; we’re not sure why….

Thank you for all the survey entries; the winner, who will be chosen randomly from all the entrants, will be announced next month

Stay tuned – next month we reveal the first of our huge 2012 PlayStation Home projects and it’s something truly special.
[HR][/HR]Don’t forget to check out our website which we’re now updating more regularly, our Facebookpage and our Twitter feed if you want more information about what we’re doing.

See you in Aurora!
[HR][/HR] nDreams team[HR][/HR]


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